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The School offers the annual Cultural Olympics to stimulate public interest in the fine arts, 1941

What began with the appointment of one professor in 1894 is now a world-class professional school offering degrees in over thirty fields of education. Here are some of the milestones in Penn GSE’s 100-year legacy of producing education leaders through innovative ideas, passionate people, and a commitment to making a difference.

A Rich Legacy

The University of Pennsylvania appoints its first professor of Pedagogy, Dr. Martin Grove Brumbaugh, in the Department of Philosophy, and offers its first undergraduate non-credit education courses for in-service teachers.

1897

Penn confers its first Ph.D.s in Pedagogy.

1914

Penn creates the annual Schoolmen’s Week, a program offering professional development for state superintendents and principals, representatives of boards of education, and principals and teachers of normal schools and colleges. In its first year, the event offers twenty-four meetings attended by two hundred people.

1914

Penn establishes the School of Education. Led by Dean Frank Pierrepont Graves, the School is located in College Hall and offers the Bachelor of Science in Education.

1915

The Maria Hosmer Penniman Memorial Library of Education is established with a donation of 3,000 books from Dr. James Hosmer Penniman.

Class of 1915

1916

Phi Delta Kappa, the national education honor society for men, authorizes the creation of the Tau Chapter at the School of Education.

1917

Pi Lambda Theta, the national education honor society for women, authorizes the creation of the Eta Chapter at the School of Education.

The School adopts a new curriculum that emphasizes “the training of secondary school teachers in the academic subjects.”

Class of 1920

1921

John Harrison Minnick becomes Dean of the School of Education.

1921

The program in Vocational Teacher Training expands into two programs, the program for the Preparation of Teachers of Vocational Training and the program of Home Economics.

1922

The School introduces a program for the Preparation of Teachers and Supervisors of the Arts.

1923

The Alumni Association of the School of Education is formed.

1925

The School introduces a program for the Preparation of Teachers and Supervisors of Health and Physical Education.

1926

Dean Minnick establishes the quarterly journal Educational Outlook, which publishes articles on education, news on the School and its alumni, and book reviews. Contributors include professors and students of the School of Education and scholars from around the world.

1926

The School introduces a program for the Preparation of Teachers and Supervisors of Commercial Subjects.

1928

Professors Emit Duncan Grizzell and Arthur J. Jones conduct a study in international education, the Cooperative Study of English and American Secondary Schools, which aims to promote better understanding between English and American educators.

The School launches a graduate division offering the Master of Science in Education.

1932

The School creates a program for the Preparation of Elementary School Teachers and begins a special affiliation with the Illman Training School for Primary and Kindergarten Teachers in Philadelphia, sending faculty to teach there and granting credits towards the B.S. degree for some courses offered at Illman.

The Illman Training School for Primary and Kindergarten Teachers, circa 1928

1933

The School of Education reorganizes its undergraduate curriculum into a “five-year program” in which students begin professional courses in the junior year, obtain the B.S. degree at the end of the senior year, and earn teaching certification in a fifth, graduate year. The School no longer teaches freshman and sophomore students.

1935

The School establishes a Department of Nursing Education for the training of teachers and administrators in nursing education and public health.

1936

The Illman Training School for Primary and Kindergarten Teachers and its Children’s School formally become an integral part of Penn under the name of the Illman-Carter Unit for Kindergarten-Primary Teachers.

The Illman Training School for Primary and Kindergarten Teachers, circa 1930

1936

The School creates a program for the training of Teachers of Special Classes and Corrective Speech.

1936

The School offers its first annual Cultural Olympics(photo at top) to stimulate public interest in the fine arts through festivals and conferences in music, dance, speech, drama, and literature, as well as demonstrations showing teachers how to promote the arts in schools. Continuing until 1954, the Cultural Olympics promote national unity during World War II.

1936

Dean Minnick organizes a Student Advisory Board to serve as a liaison between the student body and the leadership of the School. The Board becomes self-perpetuating, with members elected by fifth-year students beginning in 1945.

1937

The School establishes a Reading Clinic to provide learning support for Penn undergraduates as well as instruction for local grade-school students and adults with reading disabilities. The Clinic also serves as a laboratory for teacher education courses in remedial reading and a research facility for Penn students and faculty.

1939

The School establishes an Educational Service Bureau to “reach out beyond the narrow limitations of the classroom in order to help individuals and agencies who need aid in the solution of their professional problems.” The Bureau offers its services to public and private schools, colleges and universities, governmental and social agencies, and professional organizations on national, regional, and state levels. In its first year, it aids institutions of higher education in Pennsylvania, New York, Louisiana, Idaho, and California.

1939

Professor Arthur J. Jones organizes the University of Pennsylvania Education Field Course in Brazil at the University of Rio de Janeiro. Attended in the summer by twenty-nine American and thirty-three Brazilian students, the course includes instruction in Principles of Secondary Education, Principles of Guidance, and Critical Problems of Secondary Education.

The Penniman Memorial Library of Education, now housed in Bennett Hall, has grown to include 47,000 volumes.

Circa 1940

The alumni of the School of Education contribute funds towards the purchase of a building for the Illman School for Children. The new facility is located at Walnut and South 40th Street.

1940

The School of Education moves from College Hall to Eisenlohr Hall on Walnut Street between South 38th and South 39th Streets. This is the first building dedicated solely to the School.

Eisenlohr Hall, 1949

1942

Francis Nwia-kofi Nkrumah, later known as Kwame Nkrumah, Chief of State of Ghana, receives an M.S. from the School of Education with a major in Social Studies.

1943

Professor William E. Arnold organizes the Philadelphia Suburban Study Council to provide opportunities for in-service education of school superintendents and their staff.

1944

The School begins to offer the Doctor of Education degree.

1944

The School acquires space for several departments in the Eisenlohr Annex Building, which is located adjacent to Eisenlohr Hall.

1945

The Educational Alumni Association and the Student Advisory Board of the School of Education organize their first Teacher Career Conference for high school juniors and seniors.

1946

The School inaugurates a Curriculum Laboratory to help students, teachers, and administrators to improve instruction and study materials.

1947

The Educational Service Bureau organizes the Philadelphia Suburban School Study Council to help school districts enhance their programs and practices, gain public support for improvements, and participate in research on school problems.

1948

Emit Duncan Grizzell becomes Dean of the School of Education.

1949

The Instructional Aids Laboratory is established as a classroom for classes in audio-visual instruction; a center for demonstration, display, and storage; and a clearinghouse for information.

Women have gained increased visibility as faculty and leaders at the School of Education. Two women have attained full professorships: Theresa L. Lynch in nursing education and Laura Hooper, director of the Illman-Carter Unit and holder of a chair in elementary education. Three women are assistant professors, all in elementary education: Mary E. Coleman, Helen Huus, and Helen E. Martin. Six women have the rank of lecturer. Dr. Katharine E. McBride is chair of the Advisory Board of the School of Education.

1956

William Edwin Arnold becomes Dean of the School of Education.

1960

Schoolmen’s Week, established in 1914, has grown into a teachers’ institute offering over one hundred sessions with an attendance of 30,000. In addition to Penn, its supporters include the Drexel Institute of Technology, the Junior High School Vice Principals Association, the Philadelphia Principals Association, the Philadelphia Suburban Elementary Principals Association, the Philadelphia Teachers Association, the Private School Teachers Association of Philadelphia and Vicinity, and various local school districts. The annual event continues until 1966.

1961

The School is restructured and renamed the Graduate School of Education. Undergraduate programs in education are transferred to the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Liberal Arts for Women.

1962

The Penniman Library moves to Penn’s new Van Pelt Library building.

Early 1960s

A Committee on Students from Abroad is created, made up of five faculty, to provide guidance to students from other countries.

1963

Acting Dean Viteles transforms the Educational Service Bureau into the Educational Research and Service Bureau with the aim of enlarging and extending the Bureau’s research functions beyond empirical research to include experimental studies in a variety of fields, including measurement and evaluation, programmed instruction, and other aspects of educational psychology.

1964

Morris Simon Viteles becomes Dean of the Graduate School of Education.

1965

A new Education Building for GSE is completed at 3700 Walnut Street. The building will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2015.

The Graduate School of Education Building as imagined by architects, 1965

1966

GSE moves to the new Education Building located at 3700 Walnut Street.

Graduate Education Building, 1966

1967

GSE’s Science Education Program in 1967

Dean Viteles reports that new funding for fellowships, scholarships, and research has solidified GSE’s identity as a research-centered institution of professional education and scholarship. The funding includes Annual Giving contributions from the Education Alumni Association towards a new science laboratory, the reconstruction of a psychological research laboratory, special fellowships for students, and research grants for faculty and students.

1967

With a formal agreement, GSE and the School District of Philadelphia begin a new program for selecting and training candidates for principalships in the city’s public elementary schools, headed at GSE by Dr. William B. Castetter.

A vital part of Penn GSE, Dr. William B. Castetter, GR’48, taught at the School for nearly forty years and served two stints as acting dean. He pioneered innovative programs, published extensively on educational administration, produced definitive work on human resources in school settings, and had a profound impact on his students. His generous bequest provides Castetter fellowships for GSE students each year. In his honor, GSE created the William B. Castetter Circle to recognize individuals who have remembered Penn GSE in their estate plans.

1968

Neal Gross becomes Dean of the Graduate School of Education, bringing expertise in grant writing and beginning the tradition of winning competitive grants. Gross will introduce a combined B.A./M.S. program that allows secondary-school teachers to earn both degrees in four years.

With support from a Ford Foundation grant, the School launches an Administrative Leadership Program to prepare school administrators for creative and dynamic leadership. The School also expands its Psychological Services in Education Program and adds new doctoral programs in Sociology of Education as well as Structural Learning.

The Educational Research and Service Bureau is split into two centers, the Center for Research in Evaluation and Measurement and the Center for Field Studies. Both engage in research and survey projects and provide opportunities for training doctoral students.

1975

GSE’s programs are reorganized into five program areas: Educational Leadership, Reading-Language Arts, Learning and Instruction, Psychological Services, and Social Foundations.

GSE’s Education Alumni Association awards the Education Alumni Award of Distinction to Dr. Ruth W. Hayre, ED’30, G’31, GR’49, HON’89, for her accomplishments as both a scholar and a practitioner of education. In Philadelphia, Hayre was the African American high school teacher and principal, as well as the first African American woman to be superintendent of a district in the city and a member of the school board.

1978

Reading-Language Arts offerings are now part of a broader, interdisciplinary program area, Language in Education, which also includes Educational Linguistics, The Administration of Reading/Language Arts, Teaching of Writing, and Literature for Children and Adolescents. Educational Linguistics includes TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and Bilingual Bicultural Bidialectal Education.

1979

Dr. Mark Nagy conducts a seminar at Educators Day.

A biennial Educator’s Day is established at GSE, featuring lectures and symposia on educational developments and questions. Over 250 attendees participate in a full-day program focusing on educational leadership, foundations of education, language in education, psychology of education, and teacher education.

GSE holds the first annual Ethnography in Education Research Forum. The event will become the largest annual gathering of qualitative researchers in education, drawing a diverse array of researchers, graduate students, and practitioners in the fields of education and anthropology each year. In 2015, the 36th annual Ethnography in Education Research Forum will take place.

1981

The Center for School Study Councils, founded at GSE in 1943 as the Philadelphia Suburban Study Council, currently has fifty-five member school districts and a newly appointed director, Harris Sokoloff. The Center provides a mechanism for school superintendents to discuss common problems, learn about developments in education and administration, and conduct research into issues facing their districts.

1981

GSE’s work promoting international relationships is highlighted in “The International Relations of the University of Pennsylvania,” a monograph prepared for the Philadelphia Transnational Project by Dr. Norman D. Palmer, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Penn.

1981

GSE professor Morton Botel, ED’46, GED’48, GR’53, founds the Penn Literacy Network (PLN), which offers school districts in the region a groundbreaking curriculum to help teachers of all subjects and grade levels make literacy an integral part of their instruction.

GSE launches the Marcus Foster Fund Drive to increase the number of full-time minority students at the School and will appoint the first Marcus Foster Fellow in 1984. The fund is named in honor of Dr. Marcus Foster, GR’71, a nationally acclaimed African American educator who was tragically killed in 1973. The fund drive is chaired by Dr. Constance Clayton, GRD’81, the first woman and first African American Superintendent of Schools in Philadelphia.

1983

In response to the growing role of computers in education, the GSE faculty approve a master of science degree with a computer education specialization. The curriculum allows teachers of all disciplines to study the role of computers in the classroom and research the impact of technology.

1984

Philadelphia Mayor Wilson Goode makes his first public appearance at Penn since becoming mayor that year, speaking to the Education Alumni Association on Penn’s Founder’s Day about the importance of education and its key role in rebuilding the national infrastructure.

Penn GSE is ranked in the top ten among education schools based on the scholarly productivity faculty in a study by Richard J. Kroc of the University of Colorado School of Education.

1986

PhilWP Fellows confer during the first Summer Institute.

The Philadelphia Writing Project (PhilWP) is founded by GSE professor Susan Lytle at a time when the city’s public school teachers receive little in the way of professional development. The program, a site of the National Writing Project, begins with a Summer Institute for thirty participants, and is based on the concept of teachers teaching teachers.

1987

Marvin Lazerson becomes Dean of the Graduate School of Education and institutes a focus on the recruitment of high-caliber faculty, work that his successors will continue.

1987

Future University Trustee George A. Weiss, W’65, and future Penn GSE Board of Overseers member Diane N. Weiss establish Say Yes to Education, Inc. by promising to pay for the college education of 112 sixth graders at Belmont Elementary School in West Philadelphia if they graduate from high school. Say Yes to Education sets up a program site at Penn GSE, where GSE faculty member Norm Newberg directs educational services to support the students. Ultimately, 19 percent of the students will earn four-year degrees, despite growing up in a part of the city where only 6 percent of the population has a bachelor’s degree.

Say Yes student and tutor

1989

GSE receives the first fully endowed chair in the School’s history, thanks to a $1.5 million gift from future University Trustee George A. Weiss, W’65, and future Penn GSE Board of Overseers member Diane N. Weiss, that will fund the position of dean at GSE in perpetuity. The dean’s chair is named the George and Diane Weiss Professor of Education.

1989

Annual giving to GSE has more than doubled in the past two years. Dean Lazerson reports that in the past year, GSE faculty have received or been awarded over $900,000 in research grants. In addition, the Institute for Research on Higher Education has received $3 million to continue its pathbreaking studies in higher education.

GSE receives $16 million in grants for two national centers. This includes $10.2 million to the National Center on Adult Literacy, which produces high-impact research, innovation, and training in adult education and technology, as well as adult literacy. It also includes $6.5 million to the National Center for Research and Dissemination on the Educational Quality of the Workforce, a venture of GSE’s Institute for Research on Higher Education.

GSE establishes a faculty chair in urban education to honor Constance E. Clayton, GRD’81, the first woman and first African American Superintendent of Schools in Philadelphia. This chair makes Clayton the first African American woman in the United States to be honored by an endowed professorship.

Faculty-sponsored research has grown from $559,000 in fiscal year 1987 to $4.6 million in fiscal year 1993, and expenditures of gifts from private donors, corporations, and foundations has grown from $133,000 in fiscal year 1987 to $2.8 million in fiscal year 1993.

1994

GSE holds the first Annual Bodek Lecture, “Restructuring Education in America: The 21st Century Challenge,” by Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond. The lecture series is endowed by Gordon S. Bodek, C’42, University of Pennsylvania Trustee Emeritus and GSE Overseer, for the purpose of inviting leading scholars to the School to address significant issues in education.

1994

The ILI/UNESCO International Summer Literacy Training Program in 1997 brings together thirty educators from twenty-four countries at Penn.

A formal partnership in world literacy between Penn and UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) is launched with the establishment of the International Literacy Institute (ILI), which will be located at the National Center on Adult Literacy at GSE. The mission of ILI is “to provide scientific leadership in training and development in literacy, with a special emphasis on developing countries.”

1995

Susan Fuhrman becomes the first woman Dean of GSE. Under Fuhrman, the School will become known as a center for education policy and research and its Ph.D. program will become full-time.

1996

Federal grants are awarded to the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) and the Institute for Research on Higher Education (IHRE) at GSE. Directed by Dean Fuhrman and with its main office at GSE, CPRE is a union of researchers from Penn, Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. CPRE receives a $14 million grant to study and recommend ways to increase the effectiveness of state and local education. IHRE will be part of a grant projected at $12.5 million to study postsecondary education, with research jointly conducted by Penn, Stanford, and the University of Michigan.

1997

GSE is one of nine recipients of International Research Grants from the Spencer Foundation aimed at supporting doctoral students who plan careers in education research. The foundation invited proposals only from schools with a national reputation for training education researchers.

1997

GSE has received more than $26 million in new research awards in the past academic year.

1998

Penn and GSE enter into a partnership with the School District of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers to create a University-assisted preK–8 public school in West Philadelphia that will be known as the Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander School (Penn Alexander).

GSE establishes an Office of Executive Education and Professional Development to coordinate existing programs and create new executive education opportunities, preparing to offer a host of professional development and executive education programs that will introduce GSE to a new generation of education professionals and returning adult students.

2000

GSE launches a new executive program, the Aspiring Principals Program, later to be known as the School Leadership Program, bringing together teacher leaders from Philadelphia area schools to earn courses towards a Pennsylvania Principal’s Certification.

2000

GSE and twelve departments at the School of Arts and Sciences cooperate to provide students the option to earn both an M.S.Ed. and an M.A./M.S. in their discipline in fourteen months.

2000

The Henry C. Lea School

Penn invests $1.5 million over the next three years in West Philadelphia’s Henry C. Lea School. The partnership reduces class sizes, ensures high standards in instruction of literacy, math, and science, provides professional development for staff, promotes a positive school climate, and builds the school’s library.

2000

A $1,374,276 grant from the National Science Foundation will help GSE to extend its success improving science teaching and learning in West Philadelphia, University City, and Bartram Clusters since 1994 through the Penn-Merck Collaborative for the Enhancement of Science Education.

2001

Remodeling of the Education Building at 3700 Walnut Street is completed to accommodate growth in programs and technological advancements. Improvements include technologically “smart” classrooms and meeting rooms, and offices and workspaces enhanced to meet the needs of GSE’s growing faculty and staff.

Drawing of the Education Building

2001

The cohort of Spencer Fellows at GSE has grown to fifteen from the original four in 1997, and the Spencer Research Training Grant program has established a new framework for doctoral study at GSE, organized around a focus on urban education research.

2001

Penn President Judith Rodin, the first woman named to lead an Ivy League institution, and Penn GSE Dean Susan Fuhrman, the first woman dean of the School.

As part of the Celebration of 125 Years of Women at Penn, GSE alumnae are recognized as authors, teachers, and education leaders, and the School’s key role in the history of women at Penn is highlighted. The first two women to complete requirements for the bachelor’s degree at Penn, Pauline Spencer and Zeta Berenice Cundey, were enrolled in courses for teachers, and the School of Education was the first school at Penn to offer a full-time, four-year undergraduate professional degree to women, enrolling the majority of female undergraduates at Penn for fifty years. The School of Education was the first at Penn to appoint a woman, Edith Baer, as a member of the standing faculty.

2001

The School receives a $1 million gift from former GSE Overseer Ethel Carruth. At the time one of the largest single gifts in the history of the School, it will be used for building enhancements and fellowships for Teacher Education students.

2001

U.S. Secretary of Education Roderick Paige delivers the keynote address at the conference.

GSE’s Office of International Programs holds the culminating event in the Six-Nation Education Research Project, a collaboration with education scholars, educators, and policymakers in China, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, and the United States. Begun in 1993, the project concludes with a three-day international conference entitled “A Global Education for the Twenty-First Century.” At the conference, scholars present the research they conducted about education and economic development for the project.

2001

GSE works with Penn, the West Philadelphia community, the School District of Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers to open Penn Alexander School. The school’s namesake is extraordinary Penn alumna Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, an African American woman who earned four degrees from Penn between 1918 and 1927 in an age when women and people of color faced enormous obstacles.

Mrs. Gussie H. Gelzer, secretary to the Alexander Family, holds a portrait of the school's namesake, Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, at the opening of the Penn Alexander School. Surrounding her dressed in red are members of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Gamma Chapter, Penn's first Black sorority, which Alexander organized in 1918.

2002

GSE establishes two new executive education programs, the Mid-Career Doctorate in Educational Leadership (Ed.D.) and the Executive Doctorate in Higher Education Management (Ed.D.).

2002

Since its founding in 1986, the Philadelphia Writing Project (PhilWP) has grown its network of Teacher Consultants to 450, becoming the city’s largest and most visible teacher network.

PhilWP Teacher Consultants

2002

Philadelphia’s School Reform Commission names GSE one of seven private organizations that will support Philadelphia schools. Under the agreement, GSE partners with three West Philadelphia elementary schools—Henry C. Lea, Alexander Wilson, and William C. Bryant—known as the Penn Partnership Schools. GSE will advise, assist, and provide services in the areas of curriculum development, professional development, leadership development, parent/community involvement, student assessment, and student academic support and enrichment.

2004

GSE appoints former Radnor School District superintendent John DeFlaminis executive director of the newly launched Penn Center for Educational Leadership (PCEL). Located at the Penn Alexander School, PCEL applies the resources of Penn and GSE to collaborate with school districts, schools, and other organizations to enhance their leadership capacity. PCEL’s programs include the Center for School Study Councils, the Penn Literacy Network, and more.

2005

GSE coordinates the University’s response to the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami of December 26, 2004, with efforts focused on education rebuilding.

2005

The Penn Partnership Schools have achieved a 50 percent increase in the number of students performing at or above grade level, and the Penn Alexander School is considered one of the top five neighborhood elementary schools in the city.

2005

The U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences awards a $4.56 million grant to Penn GSE for multidisciplinary doctoral student training for education researchers.

2005

GSE and the College of Arts and Sciences introduce an interdisciplinary Urban Education minor for Penn undergraduate students.

2005

A student in the GSE/TFA program teaches in a Philadelphia classroom.

GSE partners with national organization Teach for America (TFA) to offer the Penn GSE/TFA Urban Teacher Master’s and Certification Program, becoming the only Ivy League university host to TFA. Through the program, TFA participants supplement their experience teaching in Philadelphia schools with GSE course work on urban education. In its first four years, the program trains 386 teachers to work with 32,000 students throughout Philadelphia.

2006

GSE leads the establishment of the PennCLO executive doctoral program, designed for leaders of workplace learning. Based at GSE, the program includes faculty from across the University.

GSE introduces the M.S.Ed. Executive Program in School and Mental Health Counseling for working educators and professionals interested in becoming school counselors.

2007

Andrew Calvin Porter becomes the tenth Dean of GSE. Porter enhances the School’s Ed.D. and Ph.D. programs and creates an entrepreneurial direction for the School.

2008

An innovative curriculum designed by Penn GSE faculty to improve the odds for disadvantaged preschoolers, EPIC (Evidence-Based Program for the Integration of Curricula), has been tested in 40 Head Start classrooms in the School District of Philadelphia during the past five years.

Preschool students learn a dance in a Philadelphia Head Start class.

2008

Under a new three-year contract with Philadelphia’s School Reform Commission, GSE continues to strengthen local elementary schools Henry C. Lea and Alexander Wilson with curricular, leadership, and professional development support.

2008

The American Educational Research Association (AERA) names three GSE faculty members—Dean Andy Porter, Bob Boruch, and Margaret Beale Spencer—to its inaugural class of AERA Fellows in recognition of their sustained, outstanding contributions to education research. In 2014, 77 percent of all full faculty at GSE are AERA Fellows.

2008

Dean Porter and professor Shaun Harper initiate GSE’s Visiting Faculty Scholars of Color program, a series that brings faculty of color from across the country to present their research at the School. Visiting scholars have a short residence at GSE, including a formal lecture and opportunities to share their research and insights with faculty and students.

2009

The MacArthur Foundation awards $1.4 million, the first of two, three-year grants, to a project led by GSE professor John Fantuzzo and Penn Social Policy and Practice professor Dennis Culhane. The project will create the Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy (AISP) initiative to advance integrated data systems to improve education for at-risk children.

GSE and the Milken Family Foundation cofound the Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition (EBPC), thanks to Penn GSE Board of Overseers member Gregory A. Milken, C’95. The first business plan competition at an education school, the EBPC is intended to spark innovations that improve education by bringing together entrepreneurs and funders for sustained collaboration. The first competition draws 120 applicants to compete for prizes.

2011

With the approval of Philadelphia’s School Reform Commission, the partnership agreement supporting the successful and innovative University-assisted Penn Alexander School in West Philadelphia is extended for an additional ten years, through June 30, 2021.

2011

The Philadelphia Writing Project (PhilWP) celebrates 25 years of teachers teaching teachers. PhilWP has over 700 Teacher Consultants who work to strengthen literacy, teaching, and learning in all schools, grades levels (pre-K to college), and subjects.

2011

A group of twenty-three students in the Executive Doctorate in Higher Education Management program visit Kazakhstan to consult on the development of Nazarbayev University, the country’s new, Western-style research university.

GSE and American Friends of Winchester College sponsor the first biennial Global Education Forum. The brainchild of cofounder Dan Gordon, the forum seeks to improve the ways in which young people are taught global values, skills, and competencies.

2011

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova visits Penn to inaugurate the new UNESCO Chair in Learning and Literacy at GSE. The first of its kind at a U.S. school of education, the UNESCO Chair will focus on achieving UN Millennium Development Goals in the area of basic education and literacy in the poorest countries of the world. The chair is held by Dan Wagner, director of GSE's International Educational Development Program and director of the ILI.

2012

Penn GSE appears at 9th place for 2013 in the U.S. News and World Report rankings for education schools.

2012

GSE creates an Office of Academic Innovation to oversee the Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition and other entrepreneurial initiatives.

2012

GSE and the Perelman School of Medicine launch the innovative Med Ed program, an executive master's program designed to train physicians and other health care professionals in educational practice and pedagogy.

2012

GSE dedicates an additional $3.5 million towards scholarships for master’s students over the next five years, thanks to the Abramson Scholarship Challenge created by Penn GSE Board of Overseers member Mrs. Madlyn Kornberg Abramson, ED’57, GED’60, and Mr. Leonard Abramson.

Graduates applaud at Penn GSE’s 2013 Commencement ceremony.

2013

Superintendent Hite delivers the Clayton Lecture to a packed auditorium.

School District of Philadelphia Superintendent Dr. William H. Hite delivers Penn GSE’s 15th Annual Constance E. Clayton Lecture to teachers, administrators, and other members of the education community eager to learn more about his plans for saving the struggling district.

2013

Penn releases the Final Report on the record-setting Making History capital campaign, which raised over $4.3 billion from 326,952 donors for the University. As part of the campaign, GSE raised $56.8 million from 3,549 donors, surpassing the stated goal of $52 million.

2013

After a grand jury indicts thirty-five Atlanta educators in an alleged cheating conspiracy including fifty-eight schools, Dean Andy Porter weighs in on the news in a Huffington Post opinion piece and a live-streaming web interview with the Education Writers Association. Dean Porter shared his unique perspective as a researcher hired by the Atlanta Education Fund to independently analyze the test results in question.

2013

Penn GSE earns 7th place in the 2014 education school rankings by U.S. News and World Report.

2013

Together, Penn GSE’s Dr. Caroline Watts (left) and Lea School principal Dr. Sonya Harrison, GRD’12 (right), made the first year of the enhanced partnership a success.

Penn announces that it will deepen and substantially change its partnership with the Henry C. Lea School in West Philadelphia, which absorbed students from the recently closed Alexander Wilson School. GSE faculty member Caroline Watts is appointed the full-time partnership director and will work with the school community to identify needs and coordinate academic, health, and social work support from across Penn.

2013

In its fourth year, the Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition (EBPC) attracts 250 applications from 17 countries to compete for $145,000 in prize money. The competition also provides the inspiration for the Education Design Studio, Inc., a one-of-a-kind collaboration between GSE and other partners to support education entrepreneurs as they prepare for the marketplace.

Historical information compiled from the University Archives and Records Center and Pedagogy, Professionalism, and Policy: History of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania by William W. Brickman (University of Pennsylvania, 1986)